PHIL 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Leo Strauss
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Rousseau says himself that his greatest and best work is the Emile, or On Education.xli In
that work,86 in the beginning of the second half of it, there occurs a section called “The
Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar”—the Vicar87 [from] Savoy. Now there,88 this
Vicar gives a proof of the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the freedom
of the will. And from these fundamental verities of a metaphysical nature, the Vicar
deduces maxims for his conduct and rules which he must prescribe to himself in order to
fulfill his destiny on earth according to the will of God. Yet these rules, as well as the
premises from which they are derived, do not stem from89 a “quote unquote high
philosophy,” but they are engraved in the heart of men by nature, in the conscience as
distinguished from reason. There are innate principles of justice and virtue. 90 [These]
have the character of sentiments. In contradistinction to judgments or ideas which come
from without, sentiments come from within; they are matters of faith. Without faith, no
genuine virtue; it’s explicitly stated. There are lovers by nature of the beautiful, virtue,
doing well, the common good, or to the whole whose center is God in contradistinction
to91 self-interest. There are pleasures of the soul in contradistinction to the pleasure of the
senses. Now this Vicar who makes this long speech teaches92 natural religion as
distinguished from positive or revealed religion. He rejects positive religion insofar as
positive religion claims to be of divine origin and obligatory for all men. In other words,
in a subsidiary fashion he has nothing against that.
There are also other heresies committed by the Vicar. For example,93 he doubts that the
world was created out of nothing, he questions the reasonableness of prayer, etc., etc. Yet
this man is outwardly a Catholic priest who keeps his faith, or his infidelity, secret.94 His
faith is based not on reason, but on the heart or on sentiment. And95 it is admittedly
exposed to insoluble objections, but the heart and the sentiment is so strong that it is not
affected by these objections. But the most important consideration, perhaps, is this: Is the
profession of faith of the Savoyard Vicar Rousseau’s own profession of faith? That
Rousseau and the author are different men. I say only one word about the context. Emile,
an ordinary man, homme vulgaire, has been brought up by Rousseau and has never heard
the very word “God” throughout his childhood, because nothing should be said which the
boy doesn’t understand from his own experience.96 And then he reaches sexual maturity,
and then the question arises: Will he be able to withstand the torrent of passion on the
basis of these principles of conduct which he acquired as a non-mature human being?
And in this context religion (and its sanction) is introduced. So this much about the very97
questionable character which98 the metaphysics has acquired already in Rousseau. I
cannot go further into that.
I must, however, say something more about Rousseau, and not so much about the
Savoyard Vicar as about the Social Contract.xlii I will do this next time, because without
some inkling of what Rousseau was after, one does not have99 a proper access to Kant.
And I will do that next time.
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xli Rousseau, Émile, ou De l'éducation (1762).
xlii Rousseau, Du Contrat Social ou Principes du droit politique (1762).
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3 Deleted “you would have to try to get hold of the independent, I mean, the….”
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7 Deleted: “And now let us begin. Yes,7 there is one point: papers. Most of you know the rules. Papers
should be about 20 minutes long, and that means 7 double-spaced typewritten pages, if delivered at a
reasonable speed. Otherwise, you will be through much earlier [LS chuckles] of course. And yes, and you
are perfectly free7 to give a report about the whole section or to concentrate on one or two points of special
importance. But in the latter case, you take the risk that your judgment might not be the best, and then7 this
would show in your grade, I’m sorry to say. But on the other hand it is a noble venture [laughter] and
therefore to be encouraged. Yes,7 the legislator sometimes forgets to mention things because they are
unbelievable, unforeseeable. I have had the experience last quarter that a student registered for this course,
read a paper, came to one meeting when he read the paper, and never appeared again. Now the idea of a
seminar, of course, is that it is an instruction, and not merely an instruction of the teacher by the student
who reads the paper, but the other way around. Now therefore, I have now to add this corollary: that you
are supposed7 to attend the meetings and contribute to class discussion within the limits of your health,
weather, and the like. Good. Now, I think I have now stated the rules, and we can turn to our discussion. “
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38 Deleted “Reinken: ‘Architectonic of Pure Reason.’ LS: No no no. No no. Did they omit anything?”
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together: ‘The History of Pure Reason.’”
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43 Deleted “Reinken: ‘If anything is to receive the title—’ LS: No, no, the—”
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